The fact that Witte had purchased tractors for artillery during his visit was specially requested by the Russian War Ministry, and Kulopatkin even claimed: "Whether or not these heavy artillery pieces can be used is directly related to the victory or defeat of our army in the Far East in the future!" "With such a big hat buttoned down, we can't help but be unconcerned about Werther!

And compared to Werther's troubles, Colonel Kutuzov, who was in charge of the Russian Far East heavy artillery units, is now in real trouble. www.biquge.info The former is only a liaison officer, while the latter needs to complete the operation of large-caliber heavy artillery, not to mention the problem of gunnery, how to make these heavy guns move in the place of the coffee table in the road situation is a very serious problem.

The overall level of the Russian army is indeed worse than that of the European powers, but it does not mean that there are no cattle among them! And Colonel Kutuzov is one of these cattle people, the American-made 6-inch L30 gun bought from the United States is integrated into the army gun mount, and it is he who planned to turn it into a land artillery, and he also gave up the narrow firing range of the monopod gun mount, and used a new type of bipod gun mount, and the wheels of the sports car are also semi-rubber instead of the original iron-clad wooden wheels, which makes the passage of the gun have been enhanced to a certain extent.

Then the Russian colonel discovered a very serious problem, the weight of this 152mm heavy gun was a little too large, more than all the field guns that the Russians had previously towed! Of course, don't talk about the Tsar Cannon, this thing is more symbolic than ...... actual combat significance.

Not to mention anything else, the barrel of this gun alone weighs a whopping 4.7 tons! And the weight of the row is as high as 8.5 tons or more! And that's not the most deadly, because the towing weight of the artillery is greater than the weight of the column, and if you count the towing weight, then the weight will be more than 9.3 tons! A cannon weighing 9 tons! That's about 6 times the weight of a Russian 75mm rapid-fire gun! Of course, the performance of this gun is really good, it can shoot 48kg shells out more than 15 kilometers! So much so that the Russians thought it was better to use it as a fortress gun than as a field artillery!

Such a heavy artillery is no longer a question of how to maneuver on bad roads, since in Kutuzov's opinion, the weight of such a gun is no longer suitable for towing by horses. After all, the power of horses is limited, and as there are more and more horses, the marginal effect is constantly decreasing!

The horses used in the Russian army are the famous Don heavy horses, which generally weigh around 400 kg. At its limit, you can walk for 10 hours a day, but if you drag it for a long time, it usually doesn't exceed 8 hours. If you use simple multiplication and division, then a gun weighing 9 tons requires at least 25 Donhippos to tow .......

Of course, you have to say that you don't care about the life and death of horses, if you use them for life, you may not need so many horses, and this problem can also be solved in Europe, after all, the main long-distance transportation in Europe is through trains, the railway network is relatively developed, and the distance towed by horses is from the station to the battlefield. Coupled with the fact that the best part of Russia is in Europe, it is not difficult to find some horses to replace the dead horses.

But the problem is that you are in the Far East now! There is no dense railway network, not to mention serious roads, dirt roads all depend on the situation, once the snow is accumulated in winter, and when it melts in spring, many places are even muddy! The horse's towing efficiency has plummeted! What's more, the Far East is far away from Europe, and it is very difficult to replenish this horse! The horses are not strong enough, and the replenishment is also worrying, how do you say to make these guns maneuver?

And what's even more terrifying is that even if you solve the problem of towing heavy artillery, the demand for horses is so great that it is almost impossible to solve! According to Colonel Kutuzov's estimates, an artillery regiment with 16 6-inch guns needs at least about 1,200 horses! You read that right, it's 1400 horses!

(This is estimated by the author, according to the information at hand of the author, an artillery regiment of a division in the third period of Germany has 12 150mm howitzers and 36 105mm light howitzers, which needs to be equipped with 2451 people and 2318 horses.) Among them, 12 150mm howitzers need to be manned by 685 personnel and 697 horses. At that time, the Germans' artillery was an SFH18 howitzer, which weighed no more than 5.5 tons. And in fact, the weight of the artillery that this plane gives the Russians to the air has increased by nearly 1 times! And it's 16 guns a regiment, so an increase of almost 700 horses)

When the officer of the army logistics department came to the door with the results of the colonel's calculations, the colonel explained as follows: "First of all, it is impossible for such a heavy gun to be towed as a whole, it must be divided into two parts, one part is to put about 4 tons of barrels on the trailer, and the other part is the gun carriage, only in this way can it be barely maneuvered, and even then, the weight of each part will reach about 5 tons including the trailer, in this case, we need 16 horses to ensure a stable long march." (The author does not deny that 10 horses can make do if necessary.) But it's not too much to say that a 5-ton part, 16 horses. ）

After the colonel said this, the opposite side immediately stopped talking, one artillery and nothing else used up 32 horses first! However, artillery is only a part after all, and it is a small part, and the supply of shells and horses is the real big problem!

Shells are counted like this, a shell is 48kg, plus a propellant pack, a whole 60kg, plus a series of packages. (No one thinks that heavy howitzer shells are leaked outside the transport, right) that is, 70kg ....... According to the reserve of 80 rounds of ammunition for a gun, this base number of shells alone requires 5.6 tons. And these 5.6 tons can't be the weight of the light shell, and the weight of the vehicle ....... More than 30 .......horses were killed by one base number of shells alone.

Well, you easily pulled the artillery and ammunition away, then now there is another problem. These horses and men still need to eat! Let's not talk about drinking water. Let's say you find water along the way. For the time being, we will not consider the issue of bringing water. A horse needs to consume 2.5% of its own body weight every day to maintain normal vitality. Well, assuming that a pack horse weighs 600 kg (the weight of the Russian Alden horse is 550 to 600 kg), then it needs about 15 kg of forage a day.......

So, not to mention anything else, just to transport a cannon and 80 shells, you need about 70 horses, and these horses have about 1 ton of feed per day! The so-called roughage is hay, which is made of alfalfa, grain grass and straw, if the horses are not exercising, then roughage feeding is OK, but if you want to carry out the delaying task, the proportion of concentrate will be as high as 30% to 55%! Concentrate feed refers to crops such as oats, barley, corn or soybean cake.

Soon, the Russians collapsed and found out that for 16 guns, they needed a cavalry regiment of horses to transport, and this was not necessarily possible!

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